Sunday, April 25, 2010

I want to be very careful today, because I'm referencing a conversation with a public person. While I'll do everything I can to conceal the identity of this lady, just in case someone figures it out I want to say explicitly that I have nothing but respect for her, and have never heard a bad thing about her. In all ways I assume she is competent, intelligent, and kind. I just think that she is very wrong about something, and that that blind spot is illustrative of a core human problem.##Recently conversing casually about racial images in Steven King's "The Stand," a lady professional in the SF field spoke in his defense, claiming that his lack of black characters could be explained by his lack of contact with black people in New England. Fine. The next question was why, then, when he DID have black folks, they were 90% demon, 10% angel, with nothing in-between. This turned into what I thought was an interesting conversation about images in the SF field, and why there were so few Asians or Blacks.

Her position: disadvantaged minorities had more survival-oriented issues in mind. That seems reasonable for, let's say, a reduction in statistical representation within the field (say, from 10% to 5%?) in the case of blacks, but hardly explains Asians, who actually earn about 10% more than whites per capita. She questioned whether SF was actually common in Asian culture, citing the fact that most Japanese SF books she'd seen were translations of American books. I offered that I couldn't speak to percentages of Japanese novels that were speculative, but that Manga, Anime, and Japanese film were filled with SF images, and I'd be quite surprised if their novels didn't explore this as well.

My basic contention was that you saw very little non-white SF because of the same human tendencies we've discussed here: a "10% disconnect" toward anything that doesn't resemble "yours" that influences readers, writers, artists, and editors. She objected to this stringently, saying that images on covers have no influence on purchasing, "either you are attracted to these ideas, or you are not."

I have to admit to being slightly astonished by this reply, as it would seem to go against everything I believe about human psychology, everything known in the advertising industry, and everything I've heard from countless people over the years. Blacks got more excited about Tennis when they saw Tiger Woods. Black women got more interested in science and science fiction when they saw Nichelle Nicoles. Whites got more interested in Rap when they saw Eminem (let's not talk about Vanilla Ice, shall we?) Women for DECADES told me, or interviewers that seeing women as astronauts, politicians, scientists or whatever increased their interest in those fields. That seeing no women on S.F. books wasn't their problem...but seeing images of women who carried themselves with dignity and power, as well as images that went beyond "mere" sexualization or victimhood, opened their hearts and minds to the field.

That women editors coming into the field made it easier for women writers, in a positive spiral that has led to some of the most important and popular work in the field. That men, despite having wives, daughters, and mothers that they loved, either excluded them or created disempowered images that were simply not attractive. I listened to this for decades, and it matched what I had heard from blacks about the field.

They weren't there. When they were there in films, they died (usually protecting white people). Or were in that monster-or-saint dichotomy. That images of non-whites as heros just didn't make it past the editors often, and when they did, the race was changed on the book covers. I have heard these stories from literally every single non-white writer I've ever spoken to...(the last five years or so there seems to be a bit of change here...thank God!)

This all seems pretty obvious to me. Human beings like to reinforce the images that will improve their own chances for survival and reproduction, and to see themselves in their entertainment. Not that as a "spice" they might not like to step outside themselves, but not as meat-and-potatoes. We don't believe something is possible until we see someone do it, and the more that person resembles us, the easier it it. Same with interest in entertainment: if someone like "us" is involved, it's just more fun.

What was disappointing is that I've been down this road before. For some reason, I hope/think that white females, who have experienced oppression, will be more sensitive. Or at the very least won't fall back on the exact same arguments I used to hear white males use: women aren't interested in SF (or math, or politics) not because they have been excluded, but because, well, there's something different about women. Couldn't possibly be that men, as a group, will try to confine powerful images to their own group.

Here's what I think: white women are no more likely to be sensitive to racial prejudice than black men are to be sensitive to sexism. I know there are issues I don't see or understand (which isn't the same as "issues concerning which I will have disagreements with feminists") and I was raised by and around women, more than 50% of the people in my phone book are women, most of my friends are women, I raised a daughter, love both my wife and ex-wife, and speak with a genuine, real honest to God woman hundreds of times a day. I also discuss women's issues with T almost every day. And despite all this, I KNOW that there are things I don't see. How much more so for a white female who would be lucky to have 1/10th my experience with "the other"? It's surprising any of us get along with anyone.

But this is part of what has disenchanted me with the field: the (in my mind) totally misplaced confidence that somehow SF is more open-minded racially than society at large. But then, when one points out the paucity of images, characters, writers, readers, editors or whatever, why, it can't be the fact that human beings, as a group, will tend to exclude others and reinforce whatever validates makes their own existence. My guess is that this lady went through a process very similar to my own: feeling like an outsider, finding a genre and community that proclaimed (and on the surface seemed to be) free of bigotry, that accepts human beings on the basis of their intellect and creativity.

And there, for years--I found a home. And it was only with the greatest of discomfort that I slowly began to realize that there SF fans and editors and writers seriously needed to believe that Aliens somehow represented (blacks) or that any time a character wasn't specifically described, why maybe THAT was a black person..!

Of course, I never heard a woman suggest that Aliens represented strong, capable women, or that every time a character wasn't described naked there wasn't the chance that was actually a woman...Because human minds don't work that way. I doubt they ever have. Or will. Is that sad? I don't know. What I do know is that when I realized (or concluded) that SF had these tendencies and that folks like me were swimming upstream (just as women believed they were swimming against the tide in a world of male editors) I had the choice of either thinking this some kind of prejudice that was exclusive to whites...or that it was something wrong with black people (that was certainly a possibility, and the very fact that I entertained the notion made me a racial traitor in some circles). I concluded that it was most likely due to universal human tendencies.

At least...that answer allowed me to look at the world with the greatest amount of love, forgiveness, and understanding. And that was critical to me, because the opposite belief seemed to increase fear, anger, and a sense of "separateness" from others. Ultimately, I understand that my automatic search for the ways we're all the same cannot be allowed to devolve to dogma. Hopefully, that is always a starting point only...there are differences in individuals and groups, but the natural human tendency is to leap to the conclusion that differences in the current status or behavior of human beings is a result of innate tendencies rather than environmental factors. It seems to me that deliberate resistance to this tendency is a little like "leaning into the wind" and results in a posture in proper perpendicularity to the earth--balanced in the middle as opposed to leaning one way or the other.##I can't think of a current arena that strains this way of looking at the world more than the immigration debate. I tend to lean more toward the conservative side than the liberal on this one. Would I if Mexicans were blacks? I sure hope so, but can't be sure. When I hear naturalized Mexicans discuss the need for conservative policies I tend to think that they are thinking the way I would in that situation...but how the hell can I be sure?What I do know is that there is a few core conundrums here:1) Unlike racial profiling on the basis of crime statistics, the problem of immigration along our southern borders really does deal almost exclusively with people who look a particular way, and speak a specific language. Even profiling on the basis of religion (say, Islam) isn't as specific, because Muslims have a somewhat wider spread of racial identity: some are white, some black, some Asian, and most some mixture of the three. Which means that if you cannot racially profile, you probably cannot stop people from flooding across the border.2) There is nothing particularly "bad" in a moral sense about Mexicans coming here. It's just migration, and animals do it all the time. Europeans did it, to the detriment of the Native Americans. And you would do it too, if you were on the wrong side of the line. America has spent a hundred years using the most sophisticated advertising, cinematic, television or whatever technology to say "we're the best! Life is best here! Nothing else comes close!" No sin in this. But try to tell me with a straight face that ANYONE, any group of people (or animals for that matter) wouldn't cross a river to get that life that is supposed to be so infinitely better? Come on. But as I said before...the demonizing is common because it "stirs up the troops" and without such stirring up...well, you "lose."And is there something to "lose"? Opinions vary, but my sense is that any country has the right to determine who enters and who does not. I always disliked Americans who believed they could behave as anything other than polite guests in foreign lands, or that they didn't have to play by local rules. It is not racist of me to judge foreigners in the same fashion.3) What of racism? Well, it is inevitable. That 10% aversion thing...well, I'll stand by it. But while I would expect most racists to be on the anti-illegal side of the question, I would think that the vast majority of anti-illegals aren't reacting from a racist perspective. Somewhat xenophobic, perhaps, but again any state...or organism...reacts to the introduction of foreign particles or persons. The social equivalent of an immune system response. And countries have reacted the EXACT same way when the flood of "neighbors" looked exactly like them. Racism isn't a necessary element. That said, it seems unlikely as hell that the new laws in Arizona won't be misused. It would be straining human nature to expect that. Good, decent Mexican-American citizens are going to get caught up in this. Blood will flow. This isn't going to be pretty.4) It is also inevitable that this turn into a political football. The rabble-rousing approach works just great, especially in a political climate as asinine as this one. The rather transparent "Obstruct everything the Democrats do, then blame them for not getting anything done" tactic is gonna be mirrored by similar cut-throat maneuvers on the Left. Attributing everything to racism has a nice chilling effect...while simultaneously degrading the value of the charge, making real racism easier to conceal. Nice "twofer" for white liberals, don't you think? No, I don't think this stuff is conscious. With an election year coming up, this could turn as vicious as anything America has seen since the 60's.5) Are illegals, per capita, more likely to engage in criminal behavior? Well...I'd say yes. After all, they are ALREADY engaged in a law-breaking behavior, just by violating our laws. Add to that the poverty that likely drove them from their land. Poverty is a well-known stimulant for criminal behavior, both by increasing the lure of easy gain, and decreasing belief in the legitimacy of legal strictures. So it is legitimate to make this argument. The problem is that pesky civil rights thingie...6) Worst of all, there is no simple answer, even if you DID want draconian measures. What do you do? Incarcerate millions? Too expensive and cruel. Deport them? Ah...and what exactly keeps them from just coming back? Make it so painful (by allowing the most radical of the anti-illegal groups to have sway. Inevitably, there will be "incidents" and "accidents" and acts of violence that are officially "disapproved of." We know that game) that they don't want to come here? Beatings and murder would do it. Of course, then Americans would be far less safe traveling south of the border, and we don't like that much, do we? Build walls? I have to admit to sympathy to this--it doesn't stop traffic, but it does slow it down. Stop manipulation of the language with which the debate is waged? Note the terms "undocumented," as if these people had just, well, missplaced their papers, or forgotten to renew a driver's license as I did in Seattle. I was "undocumented." They are here illegally. It could be that the only solution with a chance of success is the "path to citizenship" approach--back of the line, pay a fine, back taxes. Note how opponents to this approach call it "Amnesty," when that term means "a general pardon for offenses." Paying fines is not a pardon. It is a selection of punishment--but if incarceration and/or deportation aren't effective, what is the choice? Honestly, I'm interested in suggestions.6) How do I balance my sense that America has the right to decide who enters? The fact that without racial profiling it will be almost impossible to enforce that decision? But that that very racial profiling will damage the structure of our country. That old line from Germany about "when they came for the Jews I didn't object..." comes to mind. Creeping totalitarianism is a very real thing, and it disturbs me that the people who think Government is this great risk seem willing to give police the power to search and seizure under...questionable circumstances, circumstances that would seem to give legitimacy to some pretty unpleasant basic human tendencies. Wow. This one is just awful.7) It also wouldn't be honest to leave the "reconquista' thing alone. Most human beings aren't particularly political...but many are. And do I think that Mexicans aren't as likely to sit around, drink Cerveza, and talk about taking the country back? Probably about the same as blacks in the 60's talking about "The Revolution" except they actually have the numbers to have an impact. Is this sedition? If formalized, yes. But it doesn't have to be formalized to impact political and economic process. Americans joke about dominating the world--whether it is economically or militarily. It is natural to try to do this, and pretending otherwise is simply dishonest. On the other hand, it would be social suicide not to resist it. And the easiest way to resist it is by stirring up the base...which deals in black and white, not shades of gray. And some members of that base will push things a little too far, leading to violent incident, more fear, and easier crack-down...##How do you guys see this? I think the solution would be a combination of fences, deportations, and a path to citizenship for those who can play by the rules. Pain on one hand, and pleasure on the other. Reform drug and economic policies to reduce the amount of our negative contributions to life in South and Central America. I see no techniques that are effective that aren't also dangerous to our civil liberties--so police actions will have to be carefully monitored.

That racial profiling thing. Damn. I can only think that, ultimately, some difference will have to be made between profiling for crimes within a population and profiling to extract aliens from among a camouflage of citizens. While such laws would inevitably be loathed by some, at least our population can vote on them in an above-board fashion. Will they be of greatest disadvantage to Latinos? I see no way to avoid that conclusion. And therefore whatever laws enacted would have to be formulated so that, under other circumstances, equal discomfort falls upon whites, blacks, men, women, whatever. I don't know how to do that, or even if it makes real sense. As I said, this one is a real ball-breaker. with no easy answers at all. Unless someone out there is smart enough to have one?

20 comments:

Wow quite a post. First on the characters in science fiction. There is no doubt that people are better able to identify with characters who are more like themselves, so if most of your market is white people there is going to be a big tendency toward white characters. It doesn't mean the writer or editor is bigoted, it just means they know which side their bread is buttered on. Humans also tend to like their group to be the "good guys" Hence the tendency to make white characters the "good guys". I remember one particular example of making us the good guys that really annoyed me. It was a television production of Zender Henderson's "The People No Different Flesh". It reversed the roles of the aliens and earth people from the book and destroyed the whole thing.On the immigration subject, I'm not sure how much the Arizona law is a left/right thing. Neither my wife or I care for it. We feel it gives to much discretion to the police.We are both right/Republican leaning. My views on the immigration subject are close to yours. I believe we should make it possible for people to immigrate legally, but we have the right to control the immigration. I don't believe in blanket amnesty, but think we should set up a path to citizenship both for those who are here illegally and those who want to come. If a person passes the requirements to immigrate let them stay and make them legal. If they don't pass what ever requirements we have for legal immigration, then deport them.The existence of racial profiling in identifying those who are here illegally is concerning, but I don't think should be a show stopper here. My overall view on racial profiling is that it always helps find the bad individuals you are looking for, but the country pays in its social dynamics. In each case a decision as to whether it justified should be based upon a careful cost/benefit analysis.

What would you say to a fee for citizenship comparable to what people pay to get smuggled in?

There seems to be a lively market for romances and women-centered fiction by and about black people. Is sf such a marginal taste that nothing of the sort has developed for that genre? This wouldn't surprise me-- romance in general is a much bigger market than sf.

Or, following your theory that black men are especially seen as a threat by the white men in charge, there might be less slack for genres that appeal to men.

I am really busy with work and will have to read this post again to fully get it and write a full response. A lot of interesting things are contained within.

For now, though let's assume that the politics ultimately are with those who do want a "path to citizenship" or "immigration reform" or "amnesty" however it may be characterized.

So 12 or 30 or 30 million "illegals" become citizens in a year or 2 years or 4 years..

The basic question remains-what happens when the employers who were using illegal labor because of the ability to pay lower wages decide that rather than pay the new citizens presumably higher wages, they'd rather continue to use illegals? How would that be stopped? And if there is an answer to that question that anyone can provide, why not just do it now? =)

Or from the supply side what happens when another 20-40 million people from countries around the world see what just happened in the US and decide that they too need to go to the US, tough it out for a few years until they can get another one time "path to citizenship?

At some point the US has to have border security. The US already had an amnesty in 1986. All that did was place us in the situation we have now.

Incidentally although the southern border gets most of the attention I think actually upwards of 40% of illegals actually overstayed a visa. I can't find it now but I think the evidence actually shows that illegals commit serious crimes at or close to the same rate as citizens. I am sure many of them are good, decent people. But this isn't their country.

Shady makes a good point about the relationship between pay and illegals. My wife gas a friend who came here on from India with her husband and son. Her husband is an engineer with a masters degree. He got a job here before coming. The company was supposed to get him a green card. It has been six years and he still doesn't have one. The company started the process, but supposedly there was a screw up and they had to start over again. The woman doesn't believe this. They are paying him half of what an American citizen would get with his credentials. If he got the green card they would have to pay him what he's worth or lose him to another company. So she thinks they are deliberately stalling on the green card.

A thought about the immigration topic. Many of my conservative friends, and I admit myself also, would be less concerned about immigration if there was more talk of "melting pot" and less of Balkanization, culturally speaking.

A cultural push for English usage at major facilities like hospitals, required on road signs, for work, etc... would go a long way to ease a general xenophobia and make a path to citizenship more tolerable. That's a start but in short it's easier to stomach if we really felt like everyone wanted to be American, not just use our system. I'm not exactly sure how that could be made to happen, but I've heard that expressed more than once.

As far as paying for illegals goes, the Fair Tax (a basic consumption tax) does some major leveling of the playing field as far as businesses and taxation go. Essentially illegal workers would have to demand more pay because they would become taxpayers. Granted it's not a perfect answer but I haven't heard better yet.

You've reminded me of Dorothy Allison's incredible essay, "Puritans, Perverts, and Feminists", in which she points out that science fiction provided her only role models of strong, sexually confident women.

On the use of the word "undocumented", I've been surprised to learn how often it's quite accurate. Advocacy groups use this term to highlight how very many immigrants fall into a gray area between legal and illegal. Consider a relative listed on one form and not on another, a wife who learns on her husband's death that he didn't file her forms correctly, a student who was supposed to hear back about the visa extension three weeks ago, the American and non-American married couple whose file was lost, a worker working while waiting for the promised renewal to come through-- there are *thousands* caught in the quagmire of our slow, complicated, unspeakably untrustworthy "legitimate" immigration process.

One study in California suggests that 40% of those who are now legal were technically illegal due to errors in documentation at some point of their process.

A few years ago there was a young man from Nigeria married to a young American woman in my apartment building, with three small children to their credit. Their baby died, the mother plunged into a months-long depression treated with heavy medication that took her entirely out of her head. One of their many runs to the emergency room took place when he was supposed to be going in to a mandatory meeting to review his status. He was juggling care of the children, of his wife, and bringing home the sole steady paycheck when they caught and deported him-- 100% legal and in the fullest possible compliance.

It wasn't Tiger Woods who increased black people's interest in tennis. It was a man whose name I cannot recall just now. Arthur Ashe, maybe?Also probably Althea Gibson, unless I am mixing her up with someone else.

"...I tend to lean more toward the conservative side than the liberal on this one. Would I if Mexicans were blacks? I sure hope so, but can't be sure..."

Thought experiment: suppose Florida instead of Arizona enacted the policy, suppose the target was people who "for the profile of illegal immigrants from Haiti" instead of people who "fit the profile of illegal immigrants from Mexico," and to make this a more controlled experiment also suppose the Port-au-Prince earthquake hadn't happened. After all, you look like an illegal immigrant from Haiti yourself...

"... the problem of immigration along our southern borders really does deal almost exclusively with people who look a particular way, and speak a specific language..."

...and who look an awful lot like some other people. Me, I'm not Latina at all and some people still think I look Latina because of my Middle Eastern ancestry. Now not only Mexican-American U.S. citizens will need to carry their passports or birth certificates whenever they go out in public in Arizona. Arab-Americans, Italian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans, etc. will have to as well.

"...some are white, some black, some Asian, and most some mixture of the three..."

...which makes them look Latino and Latina. In one case the mix happened from Africa and Asia and Europe connecting in the Middle East. In the other case the mix happened from Asians crossing the Bering land bridge and/or sailing over the Pacific and thousands of years later Europeans colonizing while capturing slaves in Africa and bringing them too.

"...5) Are illegals, per capita, more likely to engage in criminal behavior? Well...I'd say yes. After all, they are ALREADY engaged in a law-breaking behavior, just by violating our laws..."

Just curious, what about babies who arrived here illegally by being carried by their parents, or older children who arrived here illegally by obeying their parents instead of staying home when the grownups who bring groceries left, and then illegally stayed here instead of running away from their parents?

"...Beatings and murder would do it. Of course, then Americans would be far less safe traveling south of the border, and we don't like that much, do we?..."

I was born in the U.S.A. and I would be far less safe traveling *north* of the border in that scenario.

"...How do you guys see this? I think the solution would be a combination of fences, deportations, and a path to citizenship for those who can play by the rules. Pain on one hand, and pleasure on the other. Reform drug and economic policies to reduce the amount of our negative contributions to life in South and Central America. I see no techniques that are effective that aren't also dangerous to our civil liberties--so police actions will have to be carefully monitored..."

"...that I slowly began to realize that there SF fans and editors and writers seriously needed to believe that Aliens somehow represented (blacks)..."

I wonder if another part of this is "if I write a character from another culture that exists then I might fuck up and real readers from that culture might complain, but if I make up the culture then I can't fuck it up and there are no real readers in it to complain!!!"?

The way to get over *that* is to *listen more*. If you don't have any friends or loved ones from the culture you're writing to listen to, go read a whole bunch of stuff by a range of other people from that culture.

Once I even saw an amateur writing exchange in which some of the writers set up an incredibly generous support group for that (basically "We've seen a whole bunch of writers get a whole bunch of stuff inaccurate and unlikely, either too stereotyped or too Americanized, about South Asian and Japanese cultures and characters. Feel free to ask us for help doing better than they did!" and they covered pretty much any non-mainstream-white-American culture past or present). The support-in-general IRC channel for writers in that exchange also welcomed those questions (even if some answers were like "sorry, I know even less than you do about being Algerienne-French, come back at [other time] when more of the Europeans log on here"). I say incredibly generous because it's totally not their responsibility to make sure writers from other cultures don't mess up stuff from their cultures, yet they still volunteered to help anyway.

"...Or at the very least won't fall back on the exact same arguments I used to hear white males use: women aren't interested in SF (or math, or politics) not because they have been excluded, but because, well, there's something different about women..."

Those arguments suck. I'm female and I *want* to read stuff from a wide variety of authors and written for a wide variety of audiences.

"...Neil Gaiman wrote 'Anansi Boys' about the children of an African god, and so far has declined to have the book made into a film as filmmakers wanted to make the lead characters white..."

OK so I first read an Anansi story at age 5 and I'm well aware that Anansi stories aren't just for kids. :) Speaking of all-ages stuff and African stories, I saw How to Train Your Dragon the other day and liked it too. The problem isn't that everyone in the movie (they're all Vikings in a PG-rated revision of European history) is white. The problem's that I haven't heard of *any* black-majority equivalent movies so far (equivalent as in made for audiences of all ages, high animation production values, *human* characters instead of an African cast like The Lion King's, etc.). :/ Movies based on *Asian* stories (Mulan, Aladdin, etc.) have done well as American box office blockbusters, now how about giving a movie based on *African* folklore a chance? It could be great! :)

For those too naive or willfully ignorant to run the thought experiment to its inescapable conclusion, history beat them to it forty years ago. The Black Panther movement of the early 70's featured Black militants who vociferously demanded Revolution! while brandishing assault weapons, sometimes in front of Federal buildings. The result: Richard Nixon and J. Edger Hoover panicked, unleashing the full arsenal of US law enforcement with tacit orders to eliminate the Panthers by any means necessary. Any and all means were indeed used, including recruiting agents provocateurs such as William O'Neal via blackmail to sow schism, evidence fabrication and outright assassination, as happened when Fed Hampton and co. were gunned down by the Chicago PD during a raid that met with zero resistance.

As far as black characters in SF go, even though it's 2010 it might as well be 1960. Syfy channel had it's latest version of "Riverworld" on last week, featuring of course, a white star, with a black sidekick to provide comedy (as little as there was in that movie), dying alot, and having no interest in a girl of his own. His mission is totally subordinated to getting his friend reunited with his long lost love. It really was kind of a sad, although I'm sure not intentioal, decades old trope.

I wonder what the actor thought of playing that sort of character?

On immigration, although I can totally understand and sympathize with the motives of the border crossers (who wouldn't? US v. living in poverty stricken Mexico), I have a hard time getting over the illegality of it all. It's not just the crime of crossing the border, it's all of the other crimes, like identify theft and fraud, that go with living here illegally.

I can't see the longterm effects of a massive amnesty as beneficial. Imagine the long term contempt for the law this would breed in the decendents of people who are here soley because the scoffed at the law. Whats the lesson they've learned?

There are some splendid African films, including the beautiful animated film, Kiriku and the Sorceress -- check it out here.

Arizona's very likely unconstitutional law cannot escape racial profiling. Which is ethically wrong on even more levels than legally wrong: the first non-First Peoples to settle these lands, long before a/c allowed the whites to come along in any numbers were Spanish-speaking peoples. Another large U.S. group of citizenry that is angry about this racial profiling law are the numbers of parents who have adopted children from Mexico and South America and other places as well. There are many documented cases already of these children seized in round-up by the INS in CA and other southwestern states and just dumped in Mexico -- without money, without Spanish, without a clue. Tragedies ensue. YOU CANNOT TELL WHO IS AN UNDOCUMENTED RESIDENT BY LOOKING.

Also much of AZ's economy is housing, i.e. construction, which long has been a financial gold mine for the Mafia -- yes, the state is at least as mobbed up as Florida and Louisiana. Who have they been hiring illegally for ages now?

You might like to look at Alma Guillermoprieto's article in the latest National Geographic, "Troubled Spirits."

There is no fair and balanced way to deal with festering problem that the feds have created and refuse to take on -- for many reasons, including that the corporations don't want this cheap source of labor cut off. It's not a coincidence that the immigration laws opened up enormously post the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts era.

"...Another large U.S. group of citizenry that is angry about this racial profiling law are the numbers of parents who have adopted children from Mexico and South America and other places as well. There are many documented cases already of these children seized in round-up by the INS in CA and other southwestern states and just dumped in Mexico -- without money, without Spanish, without a clue. Tragedies ensue..."

From what I've heard, Mexico can get even nastier to people who crossed the border or were carried across it from Guatemala than the U.S. can be to people who crossed the border or were carried across it from Mexico.

What happens to a Guatemalan-American child who was adopted by U.S. citizens, given U.S. citizenship at that point (now that the U.S. lets its citizens pass on their citizenship to their children both biological and adoptive), and then later is kidnapped by the authorities for "looking illegal" and dumped in Mexico either without Spanish (if adopted as an infant and not taught Spanish anyway) or with Spanish in a Guatemalan accent?

About Me

For the last thirty years or so I’ve been a lecturer, coach, novelist and television writer. For the last forty years I’ve been involved variously in the martial arts, and for all my life I’ve studied and enjoyed yoga. Not that I worked at it as hard and honestly as I should have—I’d be a combination of BKS Iyengar and Bruce Lee if I had.
After publishing about three million words of science fiction (including the New York Times bestsellers The Legacy of Heorot and The Cestus Deception) and having about twenty hours of produced television shows (including The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Andromeda, and Stargate, as well as four episodes of the immortal Baywatch), I’ve got opinions on the writing life.
After earning black belts in Judo and Karate, and practicing the Indonesian art of Pentjak Silat Serak for the last fifteen, well, I have some opinions there, as well. And having struggled to live consciously since childhood...well, those opinions are probably strongest of all.